So he turned to Chris Blice and John Edwards, who painted the mural in the Robertson Hall Johnson Boardroom as well as the historical mural in the Wildman Room in Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Peden proposed a medium-sized painting.

But Blice and Edwards were thinking big picture.

“They came back to me with a vision that was 10 times what I’d thought of,” said Peden. “They wanted to make the entire wall a mural.”

Blice and Edwards proposed creating a massive rendering of Hinkle Fieldhouse from the outside looking in. A glimpse of the Hinkle magic.

“We didn’t want the colors to be overpowering or realistic, though,” Edwards said. “It needed to blend in with the room.”

The room, Peden said, is somewhere students often come to study or relax. He thinks the mural will enhance the soft space even further.

The new mural will hold special significance for the graduating class of 2010, which helped fund it. According to Peden, when the 2010 graduates couldn’t decide what to do with their class gift money, they gave it to the HRC.

“The HRC meant so much,” Peden said. “They were the first class to have use of it for four full years. They really valued it, and they also valued Hinkle.”

When he contacted the 2010 class president and shared the idea, she was “extremely excited.” The class gave its blessing and the Hinkle mural got the green light.

Blice and Edward began work on Monday, September 11, and they were still working on it as this story was being written.

In the meantime, they’re discussing where they want to paint their next Butler mural. “It’s very special,” Blice said of the experience. “This is our neighborhood college and we love Butler.”

Does He Think He Can Dance? He *Knows* He Can Dance

When the other members of Butler’s Class of 2021 ask Darius Hickman what he did this summer, he’ll have a story that starts with, “I was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance.”

The incoming first-year Dance major from West Palm Beach, Florida, dazzled the judges and audience with this audition and so far has made it through the first three rounds. (The competition, which airs Mondays at 8:00 PM on Fox TV, is ongoing as this is being written.) In this summer’s “All-Star” edition of the Fox TV show, the Top 10 dancers are paired with stars from past seasons who guide them as they vie for America’s votes and the title of America’s Favorite Dancer. So far, Hickman has made it to the round of 20.

“I was always really into the show, but I never thought about auditioning,” Hickman said. “You have to submit an online video, and then they tell you if you can come and audition in person. So I did that.”

He didn’t get a response, so he went to an open audition in Los Angeles and stood in line for six hours to get a shot.

Hickman said what viewers are seeing now is the result of seven years of work. After a difficult early childhood—his mother was imprisoned for drugs; his father was absent; he was raised by an aunt who was in an abusive relationship—he started dancing in the sixth grade because “I wanted to do a sport, something, like all my friends did.”

He started with hip-hop lessons, which led him to a performing-arts middle school. The first day of middle school dance training was his first full-length ballet class.

“It was a little overwhelming, for sure, because I was frustrated,” he said. “I didn’t have the skills to keep up. It was hard for me to pick up combinations, and I was not very flexible—I couldn’t even touch my knees well. It was a struggle, for sure.”

But he persevered, and by eighth grade Hickman decided that he liked the challenge. In the months before high school, he took his first summer intensive—concentrated classes during school break—at the Harid Conservatory, a ballet professional-training school for high-school age students located in Boca Raton. That, he said, prepared him for high school at Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, from which he graduated in May.

Hickman hadn’t planned on going to college, but at the South Florida College Dance Fair he met Butler Dance Professor Marek Cholewa, who was teaching a class.

“I fell in love with his class, everything about it,” Hickman said. “I want to be taught like this. He talked to me after class and told me to come to Butler to audition, so I went to Indiana to audition.”

“We had a good chemistry,” Cholewa said. “His talent was very clear.”

And now, Hickman is Butler bound.

Cholewa said Butler Ballet audiences will see a young man with the right combination of focus and physical abilities, and “we can develop that even further.”

“I was very impressed when I saw him for the first time in Boca Raton,” Cholewa said. “He was able to follow everything that I said, which is very tough. He doesn’t know me, and I’m teaching my way, which is unknown to him, and he was grabbing the material very quickly. I’m glad he’s coming to Butler, and I’m sure he will be very good and very successful by the end of his four years with us.”

Four From Butler Are Awarded Creative Renewal Fellowships

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PUBLISHED ON Jun 01 2017

Four members of the Butler community—Karen Thickstun MM ’91, Lisa Whitaker, Miho Sasaki MM ’05, and Michael Johnson ’96—have been awarded $10,000 Creative Renewal Fellowships by the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Fellows use the grant for activities they believe will refresh their creativity and recharge their work.

Thickstun has taught piano pedagogy and piano at the School of Music since 1996. In 2002, she became founding director of the Butler Community Arts School (BCAS), which offers high-quality arts instruction to the general community. BCAS serves around 2,000 children in the community annually and also provides Butler students with diverse teaching experiences. Thickstun supervises and mentors over 100 Butler students each year as they engage with the community through arts instruction in music, dance, theatre, and art.

For her fellowship project, Thickstun plans to learn a new art form (photography) and then apply her knowledge through the exploration of photogenic scenery in the Hawaiian islands. A long-time teacher, Thickstun proposes to learn photography by taking lessons with a college student and thus experience the BCAS dynamic from a different perspective.

“I am grateful that this fellowship program includes arts administrators, and recognizes their essential role in sustaining our rich arts community,” she said.

Whitaker has worked at Butler University for nearly 28 years. She came to the university in August 1989 as the Assistant Box Office Manager for Clowes Memorial Hall, then subsequently moved into the position she holds now as Business Manager for Clowes in March 2006.

She plans to use the fellowship to do what she loves best: traveling, writing, and photography. During her travels, she has hope of connecting with other arts business professionals to compare the processes at their venues.

Sasaki, a composer-pianist who earned her Master of Music from Butler, has been on the faculty of the Butler University Community Arts School since 2015 and the innovative Little Mozarts program, also known as Little Bulldogs, for talented young performers and composers. She has also performed concertos with orchestras across the United States.

Johnson earned his degree in Arts Administration with Concentration in Dance, then joined the Boston Ballet, performing corps, soloist and principal roles from 1996 to 2005. He is Founder and Chief Executive Director of Indianapolis-based Kids Dance Outreach, which was created to bring high-quality arts education and performance opportunities directly to children.

The Arts Council convened a national panel of arts professionals to adjudicate the applications and select the 30 fellowship recipients. Since its inception, the Arts Council has awarded more than $3.35 million in grants to 400 fellows. Grants are awarded on a biennial basis and funded through a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Four members of the Butler community—Karen Thickstun MM ’91, Lisa Whitaker, Miho Sasaki MM ’05, and Michael Johnson ’96—have been awarded $10,000 Creative Renewal Fellowships by the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

Four members of the Butler community—Karen Thickstun MM ’91, Lisa Whitaker, Miho Sasaki MM ’05, and Michael Johnson ’96—have been awarded $10,000 Creative Renewal Fellowships by the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

Jazz Foundation Scholarship Awarded to Chloe Boelter '17

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PUBLISHED ON Feb 02 2016

Vocal Performance major Chloe Boelter, a junior from Algonquin, Illinois, has been awarded an Indianapolis Jazz Foundation scholarship.

Boelter, who also plays the piano and has produced two solo albums, has performed as a vocalist with the Butler Jazz Ensemble since 2014 and also is a member of a jazz combo. She is one of five central Indiana college students to receive the $1,000 award from the foundation, which works to preserve the legacy and promote the future of jazz in Indianapolis.

“I was honored and extremely humbled to have received the scholarship,” she said. “It was even more surprising to find out at the event that I was the first vocalist to be nominated for that honor. Receiving the scholarship will help tremendously with my fund for participating in La Musica Lirica, a five-week intensive Italian Opera program over the summer.”

Boelter grew up in what she described as “a classical home,” played cello for ten years, and sang with a children's chorus since the age of 7. But she hadn't taken voice lessons until her senior year of high school. She started singing jazz in high school, and with the aid of multiple directors and teachers, “fell in love with the genre.”

“Some of the best experiences with jazz for me have been when I'm jamming with friends at 1:00 AM,” she said. “We're all tired and vulnerable, and yet this raw passion takes over, allowing us all to sync up and follow where the song is taking us. Even if that moment lasts for a few measures, it's always rewarding to walk away feeling like you've learned more about the art, yourself, and the other musicians you have the privilege of working with and calling your friends.””

After graduation, Boelter plans to take a year in Chicago to record more and research graduate schools. She also will look into travelling and performing within multiple genres, including jazz, musical theater, or opera.

World Premiere of Vonnegut Opera to Take Place at Butler

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PUBLISHED ON Jan 28 2016

An opera version of Kurt Vonnegut’s Happy Birthday, Wanda June, written by Vonnegut and Butler Director of Instrumental Activities Richard Auldon Clark, will have its world premiere performed by Indianapolis Opera, September 16-18 at the Schrott Center for the Arts.

“Kurt always thought Happy Birthday, Wanda June would make a great opera, and I was thrilled when he presented me his only play to create this new work,” Clark said. “It was his wish that the story and his words be of great significance and that the music would really enhance rather than supersede it. I know Kurt would love this new opera and would be thrilled that it was being premiered in Indianapolis, his hometown.”

Season tickets for the Opera begin Monday, May 2. Single ticket sales start on Monday, August 1.

Clark’s work with Kurt Vonnegut began in the early 1990s when they created new works based on Breakfast of Champions, Mother Night, Cat's Cradle, and Fates Worse Than Death.

“Kurt Vonnegut was not only a great friend and collaborator, but also the most significant influence on my professional life,” Clark said.

Happy Birthday Wanda June began life as a play by Kurt Vonnegut in October 1971 at New York’s Theater de Lys. The play was Vonnegut’s first attempt at a stage work. Written to protest the Vietnam War in 1970, the play blends the sacred and the profane to produce off-the-wall and strangely funny satires.

Wanda’s plot is based loosely on the Greek legends of Odysseus and Penelope – it involves the unexpected return of a mercenary career solider/hunter named Harold Ryan and his wife, Penelope. When Harold left Penelope, she was a ditzy carhop; when he returns after eight years lost in the Amazon, he finds that she has gone to college, majored in English lit and changed her attitude about the macho man she married.

The Stage Manager, Emily, George ... and the Provost?

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PUBLISHED ON Nov 05 2015

When she makes her theatrical debut on Wednesday, November 11, Butler University Provost Kate Morris hopes to portray a professor with the same competence she has demonstrated in 20 years as an actual professor.

“I’m having some first-time stage jitters,” acknowledged Morris, who will be the first of several Butler guest stars to have a cameo in Butler Theatre’s production of the classic American play Our Town, November 11-15 in the Schrott Center for the Arts. “I don’t know how well I’ll do, but I’m sure the rest of the cast will be great.”

Morris will be playing the part commonly known as “Professor Willard,” a character who interrupts the play to make announcements. She’ll be followed by:

-Vice President for Student Affairs Levester Johnson, with an after-party featuring live mascot Trip (Thursday, November 12, at 7:00 PM).

-Jordan College of the Arts Dean Ronald Caltabiano (Saturday, November 14, at 7:30 PM)

-Jon Van Ness ’71, whose final Butler Theatre production as an undergraduate was Our Town (Sunday, November 15, at 2:00 PM).

Butler Theatre Professor William Fisher will handle the role at the student matinees on November 12 and 13 at 9:30 AM.

Tickets are $8 students with ID, $13 seniors, and $19 adults for the public performances. They are available during regular business hours at the Clowes Hall Box Office, and anytime online at www.butler.edu/theatre.

Fisher said there were two distinct ideas behind using guest actors. One was that “we wanted this production to feel grounded in Butler and be here—and not to pretend we’re in New Hampshire.” So there will be no period or stylized costumes, and no New England accents. But the location—Grover’s Corners—and historical references remain intact.

The other influence was a British comedy called The Play What I Wrote, which featured a revolving cast of celebrities playing themselves in an otherwise fictional setting.

“I thought it was interesting having recognizable, real people playing themselves,” Fisher said. “It’ll be fun.”

The rest of the show will be instantly familiar to those who have seen Our Town, a play that Fisher said has taken on even more relevance with its message about the importance of being present in the moment.

“Most of our experiences with this play are through high school productions that either we were in ourselves or saw,” he said. “And this is a giant step in looking at this play as a serious piece. There’s real humor and darkness in this play, and I think it’s a very important American play.”

JCA, Indiana Arts Commission Forge Partnership

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PUBLISHED ON Nov 02 2015

Butler University’s Jordan College of the Arts has forged a partnership with the Indiana Arts Commission to become the IAC regional granting office for central Indiana, covering Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Marion, and Shelby Counties.

Butler’s role through 2017 will be to set up independent citizen advisory panels that will review grant applications. The citizen panels adjudicate and score grant applications, and the state awards the grant funds. Last year, the state awarded about $400,000 in grants to Indianapolis-area arts groups.

“We are excited about having the Jordan College of the Arts at Butler University join this new partnership arrangement for Region 7,” IAC Executive Director Lewis C. Ricci said. “The College has a long history in, and commitment to, the arts in this region.”

Jordan College faculty and staff will also provide technical assistance and guidance to on public funding to artists and arts organizations of all sizes.

“I’m excited for the opportunity this will provide for our students,” said Susan Zurbuchen, Associate Professor of Arts Administration. “The students will learn about how public money is disbursed, and they’ll have hands-on opportunities to be part of the process.”

Zurbuchen said she believes no other undergraduate arts administration program has such a hand in grant administration.

Ronald Caltabiano, Dean of Butler’s Jordan College of the Arts, said the partnership with the Indiana Arts Commission “helps to strengthen our academic programming and further reinforces Butler University’s role as a nexus for arts in central Indiana. This is a tremendous opportunity for our students and for Butler.”

Woods Lecture: 'Why Skin Color Matters'

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PUBLISHED ON Oct 28 2015

Butler University’s J. James Woods Lectures in the Sciences and Mathematics finishes the fall 2015 series with Nina Jablonski speaking on December 2 at 7:30 in the Atherton Union Reilly Room about “Why Skin Color Matters."

Jablonski explores the evolution of human skin color in response to environment, and what skin color means in modern life, health, and society. Jablonski, a Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and other major honors for her scholarship and social action against racism.

Visiting Writers Series Presents Denis Johnson

Award-winning novelist Denis Johnson will speak in the Atherton Union Reilly Room on Wednesday, November 11, at 7:30 PM as part of the Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.

Admission is free and open to the public without tickets. For more information, call 317-940-9861.

Johnson is the author of numerous novels, including Fiskadoro (1985); Tree of Smoke, winner of the 2007 National Book Award; and Nobody Move (2009). Jesus’ Son (1992), his collection of short stories, was made into a movie of the same name. Johnson's latest novel, The Laughing Monsters, was released in November.

Johnson, who typically writes about people on the margins of society, published his first collection of poems, The Man Among the Seals (1969), at the age of 20. Subsequent collections include Inner Weather (1976), The Incognito Lounge and Other Poems (1982), and The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly: Poems Collected and New (1995). He has received a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and a Whiting Writers’ Award.
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822

Butler to Hold Peace Festival

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PUBLISHED ON Oct 08 2015

Butler University will hold a Peace Festival October 19–22 that will feature discussions about topics such as sustainability and the Darfur refugee crisis, and culminate with an address by Holocaust survivor Eva Kor called “The Triumph of the Human Spirit: From Auschwitz to Forgiveness.”

“The purpose of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program is to reach out to students of all backgrounds and show that social justice issues, as well as opportunities to promote reconciliation and peace, can exist within many different parts of life,” said Annika London ’17, the coordinator of the festival. “We want the Peace Festival to reflect on that concept by giving students a chance to learn about some of the biggest current conflicts here and abroad, and how they can participate in making a positive change both as individuals and as a community.”

Visiting Writers Series Presents Laila Lalami

Author Laila Lalami will speak in the Atherton Union Reilly Room on Tuesday, October 13, at 7:30 PM as part of the Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.

The event is free and open to the public without tickets. For more information, call 317-940-9861.

Lalami is the author of the novels Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award; Secret Son, which was on the Orange Prize longlist, and The Moor’s Account, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, a nominee for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, the Guardian, the New York Times, and in many anthologies. Her work has been translated into 10 languages. She is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship. Lalami is a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside.